For a weekend experience post, I chose the following topic to think about.
Topic four: - Do you make a habit of regularly tracking and budgeting for your costs and expenditure? Explain how and why and how it benefits you, with examples.
I was gonna go on about bad habits but I figure it got a bit too personal. Not that I don't mind discussing those, I just think it's a bit too deep for people who aren't me.
Topic two: - What is the most unproductive habit you have, why do you do it/continue and have you tried to break the habit? What would your life look like if you eliminated it?
You see, although I am not really the type to have any of those typical bad habits - smoking, biting fingernails and the like - I can get a bit overenthusiastic, even obsessive about things at certain times which can be a real bother to others.
But there is a perception that this is an unproductive act demonstrating that I have too much time on my hands, or I'm just a nerd, or straight up 'weird'.
Now, I know I'm not alone with the whole overthinking thing, but it certainly doesn't seem like the majority. I feel like there are two types of overthinking:
I suffer both of these. And when I say suffer, the latter form is something I love about myself, and yet I'm aware that very few others do. Most the world would gladly see that kind of personality stamped out in place of gossip and small talk. So I suffer in the sense that I feel obligated to suppress it when I really just want to shout it out to the world.
Suffer in Silence.
As for the former, this is a bit more of a bad habit for myself directly, as I'm essentially incapable of accepting compliments. Whenever I'm called 'handsome', for example, it is my immediate inner instinct to be like 'clearly just a thing to say to get favour, a student to get good grades, a girl to get a compliment in return, a boss to make them look kind in front of clients, a local Chinese person to convince me to teach them English.
There are far more scenarios in which a compliment has self-serving utility rather than a genuine outburst of pure, altruistic positivity, and the fact is, I don't see myself as handsome, so if somebody says that, they're obviously lying, as far as I can tell. To me, logic suggests it's always self-serving.
See? Overthinking.
These days, I've learnt to simply say 'thanks' and move on, but there's always that background aura within me which comes out in my voice as ...thanks -__-
That kind of human skepticism is tied into the other type of overthinking too. When I went to University, my mind kind of opened up, woke up, resurrected, and I became a thinking machine. This was a kind of Mobbs Renaissance or something. I was Googling, Youtubing, composing, spending hours on the 7th floor of the University Library pouring over classical music scores and CD's.
I insist to this day it didn't and will never make me smart. My search for knowledge only ever goes as far as a casual understanding of many things, rarely a pro-level grasp of complex topics. Hell, my 9th grade students surpass me in maths, physics, programming. Even some music students of mine play their instruments far beyond what I could ever do on my own. I'm not that smart, I'm just curious about many things and I absorbed a lot of the surface knowledge over many years.
Unfortunately when it came to one of my only friends who would engage with me in this regard, Nate, a kind of hypomanic genius, this didn't bode well, as he often upset many people with his own intensity, even reducing people to tears at house parties with his intense stares and patronising intellect. Ultimately, he became a hermit, isolated from society, and to this day lives in his parents place where he always did, in his childhood bedroom, only ever coming down in the middle of the night to grab food. I haven't spoken to him since 2010.
Thankfully I was able to be a bit more balanced and take societal expectations into consideration, and I didn't suffer from genius as he did/does.
But the older I get, the more I empathise with him. The frustration I've felt over the last decade or so, where my inspiration and excitement for an event, or a topic, a sport, a book, a movie, a game, an ant, or whatever else comes to me, gets pissed on by somebody saying 'Lol you need to get out more' or 'you're pretty weird'.
Like... No, I'm just interested in stuff, whereas you're interested in what Sarah said to her boyfriend in the privacy of their own phone call in the parking lot.
As the years go by, I've been forced to accept the status quo of the world and suppress these tendencies and desires to get child-like enthusiasm for any given thing, while balancing it with learned pseudo-enthusiasm for otherwise mundane everyday things, lest people start calling me weird again. Whenever I do have outbursts of inspiration, I make sure they are little more than soundbites or did you know fun facts.
There are some exceptions, of course. I've known many people in the past who are just as energised as me to be inspired by everything around them. Nate, my sister, a schizophrenic friend who was for a while my closest, Navin. Random online people.
The lack of people around me in this regard is actually my fault more than anyone else's. I am too introverted and antisocial to actually go out there and find people who would dig it. Although tbf, those people are pretty hard to find since they're all like me.
Ultimately, I'm still happier than I ever was. Just a bit frustrated. I have to treat it like a bad habit that needs training out of. I found a balance where I keep a lot of it inside, and anything that gets a bit too inspiring or interesting, I force upon my fiancé who either finds it awesome or at least does a great job at pretending.
I also value not thinking, and do this a lot. I'm not constantly pursuing Philosophical thoughts or whatever. The best times in memory are entirely those of simpler times up mountains or walking in the streets with the love of my life, rescuing a random exhausted bee on the street. I've learnt to value these things so much more in the last 5 years or so, so I'm no longer truly lamenting my inability to let out my deeper thoughts. I'm reasonably happy to keep them inside.
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As for the other type of overthinking, well, there's value in that too. I would hate to become a genuinely arrogant playboy after being fed one too many compliments. There needs to be a certain mindset that keeps the narcissism at bay. Perhaps it needs a bit of rebalancing, but I think it's fine.
In the end, I'm happy, no doubt about that. I don't intend on giving up this 'habit', as it's kind of an intrinsic part of me now, and what would I be without it? An NPC teacher until the day I retire? A corporate go-getter climbing the sociopathic ladder of pointless wealth and exploitative hiring practices? A 9-5 boxed in office worker surrounded by colleagues I loathe?
I dunno. I don't see a better alternative than my current self tbh lol. Could probably work out more, though.
I didn't have any relevant pictures, so here's 15-year-old me with a chicken.
